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arXiv:1608.08420 · Physical Review A

Floquet analysis of a quantum system with modulated periodic driving

Viktor Novičenko, Egidijus Anisimovas, Gediminas Juzeliūnas

Published Feb 15, 2017• 65 citations
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Abstract

We consider a quantum system periodically driven with a strength which varies slowly on the scale of the driving period. The analysis is based on a general formulation of the Floquet theory relying on the extended Hilbert space. It is shown that the dynamics of the system can be described in terms of a slowly varying effective Floquet Hamiltonian that captures the long-term evolution, as well as rapidly oscillating micromotion operators. We obtain a systematic high-frequency expansion of all these operators. Generalizing the previous studies, the expanded effective Hamiltonian is now time dependent and contains extra terms appearing due to changes in the periodic driving. The same applies to the micromotion operators which exhibit a slow temporal dependence in addition to the rapid oscillations. As an illustration, we consider a quantum-mechanical spin in an oscillating magnetic field with a slowly changing direction. The effective evolution of the spin is then associated with non-Abelian geometric phases reflecting the geometry of the extended Floquet space. The developed formalism is general and also applies to other periodically driven systems, such as shaken optical lattices with a time-dependent shaking strength, a situation relevant to the cold-atom experiments.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.95.023615

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math-phCross-listedarXiv:2605.23734•May 25, 2026
We consider a quantum system periodically driven with a strength which varies slowly on the scale of the driving period. The analysis is based on a general formulation of the Floquet theory relying on the extended Hilbert space. It is shown that the dynamics of the system can be described in terms of a slowly varying effective Floquet Hamiltonian that captures the long-term evolution, as well as rapidly oscillating micromotion operators. We obtain a systematic high-frequency expansion of all these operators. Generalizing the previous studies, the expanded effective Hamiltonian is now time dependent and contains extra terms appearing due to changes in the periodic driving. The same applies to the micromotion operators which exhibit a slow temporal dependence in addition to the rapid oscillations. As an illustration, we consider a quantum-mechanical spin in an oscillating magnetic field with a slowly changing direction. The effective evolution of the spin is then associated with non-Abelian geometric phases reflecting the geometry of the extended Floquet space. The developed formalism is general and also applies to other periodically driven systems, such as shaken optical lattices with a time-dependent shaking strength, a situation relevant to the cold-atom experiments.
We derive a systematic high-frequency expansion for the effective Hamiltonian and the micromotion operator of periodically driven quantum systems.Our approach is based on the block diagonalization of the quasienergy operator in the extended Floquet Hilbert space by means of degenerate perturbation theory.The final results are equivalent to those obtained within a different approach (Rahav et al 2003 Phys.Rev. A 68 013820), (Goldman and Dalibard 2014 Phys.Rev. X 4 031027) and can also be related to the Floquet-Magnus expansion (Casas et al 2001 J. Phys.A 34 3379).We discuss that the dependence on the driving phase, which plagues the latter, can lead to artifactual symmetry breaking.The high-frequency approach is illustrated using the example of a periodically driven Hubbard model.Moreover, we discuss the nature of the approximation and its limitations for systems of many interacting particles.
We consider a periodically driven quantum system described by a Hamiltonian which is the product of a slowly varying Hermitian operator $V(\mathbit{\ensuremath{\lambda}}\left(t\right))$ and a dimensionless periodic function with zero average. We demonstrate that the adiabatic evolution of the system within a fully degenerate Floquet band is accompanied by non-Abelian (noncommuting) geometric phases appearing when the slowly varying parameter $\mathbit{\ensuremath{\lambda}}=\mathbit{\ensuremath{\lambda}}\left(t\right)$ completes a closed loop. The geometric phases can have significant values even after completing a single cycle of the slow variable. Furthermore, there are no dynamical phases masking the non-Abelian Floquet geometric phases, as the former average to zero over an oscillation period. This can be used to precisely control the evolution of quantum systems, in particular for performing qubit operations. The general formalism is illustrated by analyzing a spin in an oscillating magnetic field with arbitrary strength and a slowly changing direction.
Quantum systems can show qualitatively new forms of behavior when they are driven by fast time-periodic modulations. In the limit of large driving frequency, the long-time dynamics of such systems can often be described by a time-independent effective Hamiltonian, which is generally identified through a perturbative treatment. Here, we present a general formalism that describes time-modulated physical systems, in which the driving frequency is large, but resonant with respect to energy spacings inherent to the system at rest. Such a situation is currently exploited in optical-lattice setups, where superlattice (or Wannier-Stark-ladder) potentials are resonantly modulated so as to control the tunneling matrix elements between lattice sites, offering a powerful method to generate artificial fluxes for cold-atom systems. The formalism developed in this work identifies the basic ingredients needed to generate interesting flux patterns and band structures using resonant modulations. Additionally, our approach allows for a simple description of the micromotion underlying the dynamics; we illustrate its characteristics based on diverse dynamic-lattice configurations. It is shown that the impact of the micromotion on physical observables strongly depends on the implemented scheme, suggesting that a theoretical description in terms of the effective Hamiltonian alone is generally not sufficient to capture the full time evolution of the system.
For a periodically driven open quantum system, the Floquet theorem states that the time evolution operator Λ(t,0)Λ(t,0)Λ(t,0) of the system can be factorized as Λ(t,0)=D(t)eLefftΛ(t,0)=\mathcal{D}(t)e^{\mathcal{L}_{eff}t}Λ(t,0)=D(t)eLeff​t with micro-motion operator D(t)\mathcal{D}(t)D(t) possessing the same period as the external driving, and time-independent operator Leff\mathcal{L}_{eff}Leff​. In this work, we extend this theorem to open systems that follow a modulated periodic evolution, in which the fast part is periodic while the slow part breaks the periodicity. We derive a factorization for the time evolution operator that separates the long time dynamics and the micro-motion for the open quantum system. High-frequency expansions for the effective evolution operator control the long time dynamics, and the micro-motion operator is also given and discussed. It may find applications in quantum engineering with open systems following modulated periodic evolution.
We give a general overview of the high-frequency regime in periodically driven systems and identify three distinct classes of driving protocols in which the infinite-frequency Floquet Hamiltonian is not equal to the time-averaged Hamiltonian. These classes cover systems, such as the Kapitza pendulum, the Harper–Hofstadter model of neutral atoms in a magnetic field, the Haldane Floquet Chern insulator and others. In all setups considered, we discuss both the infinite-frequency limit and the leading finite-frequency corrections to the Floquet Hamiltonian. We provide a short overview of Floquet theory focusing on the gauge structure associated with the choice of stroboscopic frame and the differences between stroboscopic and non-stroboscopic dynamics. In the latter case, one has to work with dressed operators representing observables and a dressed density matrix. We also comment on the application of Floquet Theory to systems described by static Hamiltonians with well-separated energy scales and, in particular, discuss parallels between the inverse-frequency expansion and the Schrieffer–Wolff transformation extending the latter to driven systems.
The Floquet-Magnus expansion is a widely used tool to derive effective descriptions of time-periodic quantum systems by approximating their dynamics with a time-independent Hamiltonian. However, its standard formulation is, strictly speaking, restricted to bounded Hamiltonians. In this work, we extend its definition and analysis to a broad class of time-periodic unbounded Hamiltonians. Our approach is based on an a priori distinct nonperturbative framework for the construction of effective Hamiltonians, which we show to reproduce the Floquet-Magnus expansion. A particular strength of our framework is that it allows us to prove that the resulting effective dynamics approximates the original time evolution propagators to arbitrary order in the high-frequency limit without requiring convergence of the Floquet-Magnus expansion, a condition that is already highly restrictive even in the bounded setting. We illustrate the scope of the method on representative models: the quantum Rabi Hamiltonian in the interaction picture, and the periodically driven quantum harmonic oscillator.